Samsung WB500

Camera manufacturers are always looking for some unique selling proposition. In the case of the Samsung WB500, it’s been marketed as world’s first compact with the equivalent of a 24mm, ultra wide optical 10x zoom. But with a few other models, such as Panasonic’s DMC-TZ6 and DMC-TZ7, already equipped with a 25mm lens, this isn’t …

[Sam Turner]

Great Leap Sideways

Samsung and Panasonic both already do compacts with 24mm wide angle so that feature on its own isn't any leap forward at all.

[Simon Harris]

Leap Sideways II @ Sam Turner...

Ditto my year and a half old Ricoh GX100 - which has a 24-72mm (35mm equivalent) lens, so the Samsung's nothing new in the 24mm stakes.

[Dick Emery]

No it's not

Hello? Leica anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ricoh GX200

As Simon Harris pointed out, Ricoh make some really nice compacts with 24-72mm lens - this includes the current model GX200. Worth a look if you like a wider view on life.

[rpcohen]

Lousy images

The pictures from this camera appear to degrade sharply beyond its base ISO80 setting. That's probably due to some heavy in-camera processing being performed to try to hide the noise by softening and smearing the image details. The situation isn't helped by the less-than-sharp lens and the jpeg & sharpening artifacts that are introduced into the images. Samsung stuffed a lot of good sounding features into this camera at a relatively low price point but apparently sacrificed the picture quality to make it happen. There are better choices.

[Anonymous Coward]

LMX3

The Pana LMX3 (which is effectively the same camera and lens as the Leica) has a 24mm lens and what a cracker of a lens it is! OK so it's a bit more expensive but with a fast lens rating of F/2.0 at 24 mm to F/2.8 at the admittedly not very tele end it's a great compact camera - even at ISO400 (especially with the new firmware update).